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E book 6 -2014 dated 11 march 2014

From a blog dedicated to provide Strategic Insights for Telcos and CSP's

Blog Source : www.maliksadiq13.wordpress.com

MWC 14 Barcelona Special Edition

Table of Contents

About Sadiq Malik ( Telco Strategist )

1 MWC 2014 Barcelona : Godzilla and King Kong get down on it !! Preview

2 MWC 14 Barcelona Day 1 : Guru Insight on mHealth !! 3 MWC 2014 Day 2 : Firefox OS – Why the hullaballoo about Gonk

,Gecko and Gaia? 5 MWC 14 Barcelona Day 4 : Thinking Carbon and Diesel !! 6 MWC 14 Barcelona Wrap up : Quotable Quotes !!

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About

Sadiq Malik is Principal Consultant at Broadband Gurus Network which provides a portfolio of consultancy services to address the ongoing business challenges faced by organisations throughout the telecoms value chain.

Broadband Gurus Network , a think tank that is focused on helping Telcos and Government Regulators on how best to monetize broadband in the pursuit of bridging the Digital Divide in Developing countries.

At Informa Telecoms Media’s Middle East & Africa region Sadiq spearheaded the design and delivery of consultancy packages to help telcos and CSPs succeed in a fast evolving market landscape with alternative business models . At BCT Global, Sadiq led the formation of the telco services division where he secured contracts concerning a range of innovative services in the broadband arena.

As strategic projects consultant for Motorola, he initiated projects with a long-term impact on the company’s intellectual and brand competitiveness such as the establishment of Africa’s first cellular training centre.Sadiq has managed several key projects for Telcos / CSP’s including: LTE Business Planning; Fixed Mobile Operator Consolidation assessment; monetising VAS strategic planning and Smart Cities Evolution (technical and commercial planning).

Sadiq is speaker at telco conferences and conducts CxO workshops for CSP’s in Malaysia , Dubai, Cairo and Johanesburg. Some of the workshop themes : Convergent Billing , Hybrid Broadband Architectures , IPTV Commercial strategies , 3G LTE and Wimax Technical and commercial aspects , Telco 2 business models , Mobile network optimisation and Capacity planning , Business case build up Mobile TV etc.

In the last 5 years he has trained over 1000 managers from the Telco industry in MEA and Far East.

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1: MWC 2014 Barcelona Preview : Godzilla and King Kong get down on it !!

Most of you know that next week the Godzilla ( Telcos ) and King Kong ( OTT ) clans will congregate in Barcelona at the Mobile World Congress. This annual gathering of the leading ( and not so leading ) players in the Mobile and Internet value chain is becoming gargantuan. Those of you who are fortunate enough to attend , comme moi , should expect several topics being discussed and digested in the carnival atmosphere. Try not to get lost or bewildered in the 70000 strong horde of humanity !! At the end of 4 days of this Congress you will be tired but hopefully educated and inspired.

Plan carefully your visits to the exhibitor’s , speakers and the GSM<A themed areas. The organisers expect 1,700 exhibitors utilising 94,000 net square metres of exhibition and business meeting space.And the Key Note presentations are not to be missed under any circumstances. Monday’s opening keynote session sets the tone with a discussion about mobile operator strategies, which brings together chief executives from the US, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Regulators, too, are well represented. Over 80 government ministers are attending the government programme, which includes a focus on how to facilitate investment and bridge the catastrophic Digital Divide in third world countries.

So what can you expect in Barcelona next week ???

Most pundits agree that wearable devices will be a hot topic so expect lots of new products in this area. The industry is placing a lot of hope on this sector as

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the next big thing, but there's also an enormous amount of hype. Big questions still need to be answered. Do people actually want wearables? Which form factors work best? What will people pay for them? Will they keep using them? Right now the jury is most definitely out whether you will be sporting Google Glass to do something more useful than just showing off to your friends. The lack of true value that these devices add mean that it will be 2015 before they start to go mainstream. Maybe it is another category that Apple needs to redefine before we see real growth.

For smartphones it's all about iteration rather than innovation this year, although a few curved screen phones will offer something a bit different. We should see new devices from Samsung, HTC, Nokia, Huawei, TCL, Sony and others…as well as more devices with a curved/flexible display from Samsung and LG. However, flexible displays will only become popular when users can bend and fold a large screen into a small pocket. Other announcements are expected from Russian company Yota Devices, which could launch version 2 of its dual-screen Yota Phone. The possible launch of what has so far been dubbed the ‘Blackphone’, a joint project of Silent Circle and Spanish smartphone Geeksphone.

This year’s MWC provides a good opportunity for Mozilla to announce the next step in Firefox OS development. It’s an ideal time for an update since Firefox is also proving to be the best bet so far among the various operating systems that have emerged in the past year or two.Visitors to last year’s event will remember that Mozilla created a storm by unveiling Firefox OS as an alternative HTML5-based operating system for low-cost Android smartphones in emerging markets. The company said at MWC 2013 that more than 20 operators and handset vendors would support the new platform, and Spain’s Telefonica has arguably been the staunchest supporter of the Firefox OS, launching the first device based on the OS in Spain last July. In November, Mozilla claims the OS was now available in 13 countries. MWC 2014 could prove to be a belated coming-out party for Tizen on Samsung devices. Tizen itself has also indicated that there could be an update on its operating system in Barcelona this year. I am really hoping to hear news on the commercial rollout of Mark Shuttleworth’s UBUNTU OS for Mobile.

In the network, we’ll see lots of SDN/NFV, small cells and LTE-Advanced. Thats means CLOUD CLOUD and more CLOUD. LTE's going to be a major focal point .There are 200 million LTE subscribers worldwide and CCS Insight forecasts they'll grow to over 1 billion by 2017. 5G probably is the hottest topic everyone likes to talk about, but only to say, “it’s not defined yet and it won’t be around for 5+ years.” We love our acronyms in the Mobile Industry and we nod

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sagely to each other even if we don’t have a clue on what the acronym means or how the technology works.

Most Operators will complain about the lack of spectrum to rollout national LTE networks as usual. Service-wise, we expect a lot about the future of voice/messaging and data monetisation (including OTT partnerships).But MNO’s and OTT’s ( Godzilla and King Kong ) will snipe at each other as to who is eating whose lunch ( as usual ). Who will win ?? Eventually both monsters will realize that they have to collaborate ( rather than bash ) with each other to provide valuable content and reliable connectivity at lower costs to the broadband consumer. As if there is a shortage of people without high speed broadband on the planet !! Hey animals…who is going to pay for ugrading the Internet backbone as the existing infrastructure buckles under the enormous data traffic of high speed broadband networks and smart devices ?? Within its short lifespan, the Internet has already delivered huge economic and social benefits. For growth to continue, however, there must be a realignment of how investments are made and value is captured.

The real area of innovation in 2014 will be in the Internet of Things and specifically M2M. This category will see substantial growth across a number of verticals and we would expect to see a lot of companies demonstrating exciting solutions at the show. While there’s obviously a huge opportunity here, there’s still lots of work to do and it will be a long time before operators see any significant revenues from connected devices : GSMA Intelligence estimate that M2M made up just 2.8 per cent of global connections last year.As our lives become increasingly digital, the concept of identity in the digital world – and who authenticates s identities and guards their personal data – is going to be hugely important commercial opportunity for Telcos that move fast to capitalise.

In addition one would like to see the back office get the attention it deserves. To some extent, we’ve seen its profile rise in the face of hype around data analytics (aka, “big data”). Still, the OSS/BSS space isn’t often considered exciting; that’s a shame since it’s at the center of carrier service innovation. The IT nerds have been working hard to add value to what was once the territory of the hardware engineers.

Embedded in millions of smartphones everywhere, unassuming NFC technology is now storming to the center stage. NFC is teaming up with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to form a technology trio to power up the connected life vision . Together, these three technologies will transform mobile content sharing and entertainment by providing seamless hand-offs, instant and always-on connectivity, and new ways to work and game. The latest generation of NFC tags can even switch on

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Bluetooth devices and Wi-Fi networks by harvesting their power, making it that much easier to access media and content. Instead of printing costly user manuals, electronics and games manufacturers can leverage the same NFC tags they’re using for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi pairing to link consumers to graphic instructions and videos on their corporate website.

MWC continues to showcase the developed world benefits on an ongoing basis from incredible advancements in mobile technology and connectivity. Most Gurus agree that as an industry we need to do more to make mobile technology more accessible to a greater percentage of the world’s population. The solutions that are being developed today have the opportunity to have wide scale economic, social and environmental benefits that will change people’s lives.

YESS : VIVA LA TECNOLOGIA MOVIL : Bienvenidos a España….The City of Barcelona are great hosts !!

Sadiq Malik ( Telco Strategist )

2 : MWC 14 Barcelona Day 1 : Guru Insight on mHealth !!

The GSMA believes that mobile operators, through their evolving capabilities in creating meaningful connections between people, organisations and ultimately systems, can have a dramatic impact on the healthcare industry in improving access, reach and quality. Today the GSMA (Invitation only ) Ministerial sessions on m health

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certainly highlighted that developed countries are under intense pressure to reduce the cost of healthcare, whereas developing countries have a greater need to deliver life-saving services more broadly.The session deliberated on several key questions : What role can mobile play in delivering future healthcare worldwide? How can governments embrace the significant opportunity to improve quality of life for individuals, and increase access and efficiency in health services for its citizens? What are the emerging best practices from mHealth implementations. Believe it or not TB is a largely curable disease but requires six months of diligent adherence to the medication regime. mHealth could help control TB mortalities by ensuring treatment compliance through simple SMS reminders. Delivering mobile-assisted awareness to pregnant mothers and traditional birth attendants could reduce perinatal and maternal mortality by 30%.

In some developing countries, where there is less or totally non existing technical infrastructure and eHealth systems installed in hospitals, so the focus will be on basic health data collection, basic ICT infrastructure such as connectivity, and health access. Clinical adoption issues (relative to the developed world) will be lower, although the degree of IT literacy will cause issues depending on the specific market. However, budgets will also be correspondingly tighter, particularly in relation to eHealth systems which have been developed to cater more to the Western market, and particularly as health budgets will be devoted more to basic health provision, medical supplies and manpower.As mobile operators develop capability in the ICT space and begin to replicate the capabilities of an ICT infrastructure provider (such as IBM, EDS and Oracle). This may be acceptable in markets where the mobile operator has a natural incumbent advantage – but in other markets where this is not the case the key challenge then becomes one of differentiation.There are two parameters that provide mobile operators with a unique value proposition in the eHealth industry according to GSMA :

1. Leverage Global Integration capabilities for Supply Chain efficiencies

Traditionally, the mobile operator value chain consists of those core capabilities that enable it to acquire customers through its sales and distribution network, set them up on the network, identify and connect consumers on a network, create value added services in both voice and data, provide customer service and run sophisticated billing and tariff programs to optimise revenue per customer. In recent years, some mobile operators (particularly those with strong group operations) have developed specialised global business integration capabilities, ranging from cloud computing, portal technologies, payment mechanisms, Machine-to-Machine (M2M) platforms and solutions, and systems integration.

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These are the capabilities that allow the mobile operator to create solutions connecting the healthcare providers with the patient, as well as with other healthcare players in the industry, providing the industry level integration.

2. Shifting Demand with Integrated Participative Healthcare

In developing countries, the chronic shortage of healthcare professionals as well the prohibitive cost of building healthcare facilities in rural areas, are also indicators of a need for healthcare to develop beyond its traditional hospital-bound model. This can be done either by keeping patients from entering the system through effective prevention and wellness, or by managing patients consistently after they exit the system through medication adherence, effective monitoring and post-discharge management, particularly in the case of chronic diseases.

One key opportunity discussed is the ability to take mobile operators’ core capabilities and apply them inventively to solve healthcare problems both large and small. Telefonica talks of a “lift and shift” economies of scale methodology whereby there is a rule about being able to re-use a significant percentage of the investment made into any particular technology in another region.”. AT&T speaks of “utilising all of AT&T’s core assets to apply to healthcare”, and also of the importance of “scaling up” applications in both simple and complex settings, working from small to large scale.

Contingent upon the mobile operator’s global business integration capabilities is its ability to offer health specific solutions e.g. Cloud-based PACS or records hosting, remote monitoring solutions to manage chronic diseases, or sophisticated tele-medicine capabilities incorporating collaboration technologies with remote diagnostic equipment. These will enable the mobile operator to differentiate its offering while leveraging on its core ICT capabilities. Depending on the mobile operator’s business strategy, such capabilities can be developed either through internal development, partnering or acquisition. This strategy however requires greater internal investment in order to develop specialised health expertise, as well as to select suitable business partners with which there is mutual benefit.

Collaboration is an example of a capability that can apply both within the enterprise, between different healthcare institutions, as well as between the institution and the patient. At the simplest level, this can be web-enabled audio and video-conferencing solutions between physicians, to sophisticated solutions which incorporate both videoconference as well as peripherals which allow specialists to conduct diagnostic assessments to patients in remote areas. Cisco, for example, partners with both Telefonica and AT&T to provide such solutions. In

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Telefonica’s case, the Health Presence product was introduced in order to alleviate the travel needs for patients in the Balearic Islands who previously had to travel to Mallorca for diagnosis.

Orange set up their Orange Healthcare business unit in 2007, talks of “joining up healthcare”, echoing the role of mobile operators in connecting both the healthcare enterprise and the patient, as well as helping to remove the boundaries between the increasing number of players in the healthcare industry. They have organised themselves into services supporting the patient (in terms of wellness and prevention), to services supporting the healthcare professional and hospital operations, to services connecting the two in order to better manage the number one problem driving healthcare costs globally, that of chronic disease management.Telefónica, which set up their global eHealth unit in 2009, speak of their unit as being a “standard bearer for health products and services”, with three focus areas in Remote Patient Management (RPM), Telecare and Health IT. Grounded in the belief that healthcare both has a local context, as well as a need to cross-pollinate ideas and scale across geographies, their organisational strategy was to have separate individuals which have both a functional responsibility, as well as a regional/country focus

While the mobile operator industry relies a lot on partnerships to get into the health industry and expertise, the more established players do recognise the need to create their own in-house health expertise. When AT&T started their health business unit, for example, it hired 60% of their staff directly from the healthcare industry. Telefónica decided to build their team combining staff coming from the healthcare industry with experienced employees with deep knowledge of ICT as well as of the functioning and capabilities of a telco operator. Orange has 100 R&D professionals in healthcare in 4 Skill Centres globally in order to develop expertise tailored to healthcare systems in their global footprint. Telefonica centralises their technical resources in a Living Lab in Granada which houses all their healthcare application development expertise.

Cloud-based eHealth systems are gaining traction, as the number of locations of healthcare practice increase, along with the high cost of deployment and maintenance for traditional client-server models. These are particularly attractive to smaller clients with less complex needs, or clients with budget constraints. However, there are still residual concerns with the security and reliability of using a fully cloud-based solution for mission-critical health applications. Security and reliability can often be obtained through more “private” clouds which offer dedicated resources and guaranteed access, which unfortunately reduces the core cost advantage which cloud systems are procured for. Use case for the cloud is in the hosting of health records or acting as a connector between

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different enterprise level EMR systems. AT&T’s Healthcare Community Online product is a health information exchange based on cloud technologies, supporting collaborative care through secure messaging, access to multiple applications through one portal, integrating with the American Medical Association’s own portal.

Be sure of one thing “ the mobile operator’s evolving participation in eHealth will ultimately depend on the extent to which there is mutual value creation between the two sectors. For the mobile operator, there is the promise of a new corporate segment, a means to better utilise and monetise their enterprise ICT capabilities, an opportunity to extend their brand in the healthcare industry, and provide more subscriber value in their own mHealth services as they better integrate into the enterprise healthcare sector. SMART, a mobile operator based in the Philippines, recently rolled out a lightweight eHealth system in two major cities, with these constraints in mind. A mobile operator based in South Korea, has also recently developed a hospital information system that it plans to roll out across various sites in its home country, and currently considering expansion to China.For the healthcare sector, the mobile operator’s involvement represents an opportunity to reap the large economies of scale of using mobile operators’ significant IT investment, and partnering with an ICT player who is best placed in helping it extend its reach to the patient.

Sadiq Malik ( Telco Strategist )

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3 : MWC 2014 Day 2 : Firefox OS – Why the hullaballoo about Gonk ,Gecko and Gaia?

Judging by the number of visitors thronging the Mozilla stand , Firefox OS is creating major waves in Barcelona ( just as it did in 2013 ).The PR machinery has been running overtime bolstered by the announcements from Telefonica who announced that it plans to further leverage Firefox OS and redouble its efforts to provide access to the Internet to the next Billion consumers. In 2014, Telefónica will offer Firefox OS devices in a total of 16 countries, leveraging the openness of the Web and HTML5 as an alternative to the closed ecosystems providing an alternative choice to consumers in countries where smartphone penetration is still low – especially in Latin America and Africa .

Telenor and its operating businesses have also seen great consumer satisfaction and a continued appetite in the market for quality, low-cost products based on Firefox OS. Mozilla are working closely with partners like Deutsche Telekom and KDDI to customize Firefox OS with new features that will make it more attractive to the discerning smartphone shoppers in their markets. Operator support for Firefox OS to expand, as Telkomsel and Indosat have joined the list of 21 key operators across the globe that support the open Web device initiative. That list also includes partners announced in 2013: America Movil, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, Etisalat, Hutchison Three Group, KDDI, KT, MegaFon, Qtel,

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SingTel, Smart, Sprint, Telecom Italia Group, Telefonica, Telenor, Telstra, TMN and VimpelCom.

So lets take a deeper look into Firefox. The Firefox OS is basically built on HTML5 Web standards and hence, these apps are designed to run on any system at all, with the most minimal amount of reworking and redesigning done on the part of the app developer. This flexibility would encourage mobile carriers to offers services specifically tailored to user needs and preferences. Firefox OS is designed to provide a “complete” community-based alternative system for mobile devices, using open standards and approaches such as HTML5 applications, JavaScript, a robust privilege model, open web APIs to communicate directly with cell phone hardware, and application marketplace. The initial development work involved three major software layers in the Firefox OS :

1.Gonk consists of a Linux kernel and user-space hardware abstraction layer (HAL). The kernel and several user-space libraries are common open-source projects: Linux, libusb, BlueZ, etc. Some other parts of the HAL are shared with the Android project: GPS, camera, among others. Gonk is basically an extremely simple Linux distribution and is therefore from Gecko’s perspective, simply a porting target of Gecko; there is a port of Gecko to Gonk, just like there is a port of Gecko to OS X, and a port of Gecko to Android.

2.Gecko is the application runtime of Firefox OS. Gecko implements open standards for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Gecko includes a networking stack, graphics stack, layout engine, virtual machine (for JavaScript), and porting layers.

3.Gaia is the user interface of Firefox OS and controls everything drawn to screen. Gaia includes by default implementations of a lock screen, home screen, telephone dialer and contacts application, text-messaging application, camera application and a gallery support, plus the classic phone apps: mail, calendar, calculator and marketplace. Gaia is written entirely in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It interfaces with the operating system through Open Web APIs, which are implemented by Gecko. Because it uses only standard web APIs, it can work on other OSes and other web-browsers.

This platform lets developers leverage the full benefit of its features such as accelerometer and camera and turn them into interesting apps for the end-user. The APIs available to developers could help them create useful apps, which other browsers too can integrate and make use of. The fact that Firefox OS is developed completely in the open has been a huge boon to the project. OEMs,

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chipset vendors, network operators and individuals have written substantial parts of the operating system. These contributions extend from the addition of key Firefox OS features from leading mobile industry players, down to localized apps being added to our Marketplace by individual Web developers.

This new mobile platform sharply focuses on providing the end-user with the maximum possible security while online on mobile. All apps in the marketplace go through a tough verification process, where they are tested for malware and other potentially dangerous inclusions. Each app can access only a certain amount of APIs. Additionally, apps that offer location services, for example, must first receive user permission to do so. Hence, user privacy and security is the topmost priority of this OS. In order to promote the ecosystem, the Open Web Device Compliance Review Board (CRB) was formed by Mozilla and major global partners in late 2013. The CRB’s aim is to define and evolve the process of encouraging API compatibility and competitive performance for open Web devices.

Deutsche Telekom is utilizing this customization to develop new Firefox OS features for the Future of Mobile Privacy project, a joint effort with Mozilla to bring data privacy closer to customers. The organizations’ privacy offices have been collaborating over the past year to conceptualize and develop new privacy features that are currently being tested for consideration in future Firefox OS releases.

Mozilla includes dynamic app search, which offers advanced search capabilities, while also seamlessly integrating with the most popular social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter and so on. This is especially beneficial for mobile marketers and B2B companies, who can additionally make use of the location feature to reach more customers via the mobile social sphere. The Firefox Marketplace also offers developers the advantage of flexibility and ease to work with.

Mozilla is in itself a not-for-profit establishment. However, it aims to enable its partners and app developers to make more money while associating themselves with its Firefox OS. This company presents vast opportunities to amateur developers who cannot afford the high costs of iOS and Android app development. While it stipulates a 70/30 split on app sales, developers can earn more money via monetization, creating their own billing system, even designing their own exclusive marketplace.

Mozilla has long targeted the low end of the smartphone market with its Firefox OS hardware, rather than get torn to bits trying to compete with the likes of Apple and Samsung on the high end. What makes the new ultra-low price point

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possible ? According to Mozilla, it’s a new system on a chip (SoC) developed by hardware partner Spreadtrum, a Chinese fabless semiconductor company that specializes in building reference designs and turnkey device designs for OEMs.Previous Firefox OS handsets were based on Qualcomm Snapdragon SoCs, as are some new devices being shown off at this year’s MWC.

Indeed, capturing share in emerging markets has been one of the key themes of this year’s MWC. Microsoft announced that it has has similarly been working with Qualcomm to develop an SoC that could be used to build ultra-cheap Windows Phone devices.One of the advantages of Mozilla’s mobile OS is that it can run on very low-end hardware – to say nothing of the low cost of the OS to OEMs, considering that it’s developed as an open-source project with a fully open ecosystem.

Think about this : a $25 smartphone for emerging countries. Can you even fathom the positive impact on the Digital Divide ? What about the impact on the Mobile networks ? Those MNO’s that are dozing at the wheel are heading for a serious crash if they don’t upgrade their networks , bolster the BSS / OSS core and devise profitable data monetisation strategies to handle a data tsunami of titanic proportions.

Firefox OS is also expanding to additional form factors, as partners and contributors work to optimize the software for TVs, tablets and other devices. In January, Panasonic announced a partnership with Mozilla to release next-generation smart TVs powered by Firefox OS.

We all know that Linux ( the heart of Firefox ) is really stable and robust platform : which means a smooth responsive smartphone interface maybe even better than Apple IoS. Firefox changed web browsing forever by putting users first and offering a new level of choice and innovation online. Now they are doing it all over again with Firefox OS, while bringing the same superior browsing experience to your smartphone

In the final analysis Open Source is in the vogue now. Many people prefer open source software because they have more control over that kind of software. They can examine the code to make sure it’s not doing anything they don’t want it to do, and they can change parts of it they don’t like. Users who aren’t programmers also benefit from open source software, because they can use this software for any purpose they wish—not merely the way someone else thinks they should.

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Open source platforms appeal to the NEW AGE rebel in us. Hey…why pay exhorbitant royalties to closed proprietary systems owned by “greedy” software corporations ? We love ” not for profit ” ” community based ” initiatives that empower the small people ( developers ) don’t we ?? As far as i am concerned i just adore the funky foxy cool Firefox logo !!

Sadiq Malik ( Telco Strategist )

4 : MWC Barcelona Day 3 : The Connected Car is getting ready to roll !!

Browsing around the GSMA Connected Living pavilion is always inspiring because it is what mobile will do for our future.The Connected Car section exhibits exciting developments in the auto / mobile industries partnerships. After all we love our cars and spend so much of our life commuting.For the neophytes a Connected Car is a car equipped with on board localization and communication technologies, internet access, and usually also with a wireless local area network.This allows the car to share internet access to other devices both inside as outside the vehicle and to interact with other vehicles and infrastructures. Examples of Connected Car technologies are: In-vehicle navigation system with GPS and TMC for providing up-to-date traffic information, Adaptive cruise

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control (ACC), Lane departure warning system,Lane change assistance system, Collision avoidance system (Precrash system),Intelligent speed adaptation or intelligent speed advice (ISA) system, Night Vision system, Adaptive light control system, Automatic parking system,Traffic sign recognition system,Blind spot detection system, Driver drowsiness detection system,Vehicular communication systems,Electric vehicle warning sounds used in hybrids and plug-in electric vehicles, etc.

The opportunity for the Connected Car market is huge, both in terms of revenue and benefits, such as customer loyalty.The global connected car market will be worth €39 billion in 2018 up from €13 billion in 2012, according to new market forecasts.The market is close to the tipping point where connectivity in cars will become a mass market.As 4G LTE networks reach people , virtually every auto manufacturer is working toward a connected car that takes advantage of next-gen data speeds, from voice-controlled apps and infotainment to advanced diagnostics.To build this new market, the mobile and the automotive industry will need to work in collaboration to surmount the challenges and deliver its promise.The industry is gearing up for a significant shift that will leave the landscape changed forever : whether you are a mobile network operator, automaker, software developer or hardware vendor there are huge opportunities on offer.

In 2011,Machina Research conducted a market sizing study (Machine-to-Machine (M2M) Communication in the Automotive Sector (2010-20), which forecast major growth in both telematics and infotainment services between 2010 and 2020. Automakers indicated that:Telematics and infotainment will be offered across vehicle brands, with a critical mass on embedded solutions :Tethered solutions will continue, with a focus on providing upgradable solutions for technology and, hence, the higher bandwidth services, i.e. infotainment, high bandwidth apps (music & video) : Embedded solutions will continue for vehicle-centric,high-reliability and high availability apps (such as eCall and bCall) :Infotainment and video services are expected to grow exponentially.Machina’s forecast for global wireless traffic generated by embedded mobility in the automotive sector shows entertainment and internet access driving an exponential increase in data traffic.

Mobile operators are seeking to better understand the auto industry’s requirements with respect to: How in-vehicle services, and their connectivity requirements,are evolving.How to enable all appropriate connectivity options for services.Greater understanding of these two aspects will facilitate the development of tailored approaches and services to support telematics and infotainment,in line with the underlying needs of automakers. Moreover,cross industry collaboration will be required to overcome some existing ecosystem

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barriers. Mobile operators are particularly interested in fostering this joint collaboration in areas such as: Operational improvements on how to optimise data usage, common requirements for services and improving service delivery for different types of connectivity:new means to foster telematics and infotainment business development, such as through joint application programming interfaces (APIs), apps development and location-based services.

GSMA,along with a group of leading mobile operators,has already finalised the market requirements for the development of standardised embedded SIMs and for the remote management of SIMs.This has paved the way for the implementation of a worldwide-embedded SIM standard, reducing fragmentation and driving scale for ‘connected’ devices across various industries, including automotive, consumer electronics, healthcare and utilities.The goal of this initiative is to enable remote SIM management,helping drive global momentum for new, innovative and cost effective connected devices that will enhance daily life, while retaining the security and flexibility of current SIM card form factors.

AT&T was the first to enter the market with a proprietary, single global SIM platform giving automotive, consumer and M2M equipment makers the ability to work through a single carrier to wirelessly enable and connect products.Announced last year, AT&T’s single SIM platform delivers built-in access to wireless and data networks throughout most of the world, with service in more than 200 countries and access to more than 600 carriers worldwide.AT&T spearheads two major initiatives to lead innovation in the connected car market – a first-of-its-kind connected car center in Atlanta, called the AT&T Drive Studio, and a modular, global automotive platform called AT&T Drive.The AT&T Drive Studio integrates AT&T solutions across multiple companies and serves as a hub where AT&T can respond to needs of automotive manufacturers and the auto ecosystem at large.AT&T Drive Studio showcases end-to-end solutions that AT&T and its contributors can provide automotive manufacturers around the world.Significant ecosystem players are committed to the Drive Studio and will work alongside AT&T, including Accenture, Amdocs, Clear Channel’s iHeart Radio, Ericsson, Jasper Wireless, Synchronoss and VoiceBox.

A number of options exist to connect a vehicle, including: Embedded: Both the connectivity (modem and UICC) and intelligence is built directly into the vehicle Tethered: Connectivity is provided through external modems (via wired, Bluetooth or WiFi connections and/or UICCs), while the intelligence remains embedded in the vehicle. Integrated: Connectivity is based upon integration between the vehicle and the owner’s handset, in which all communication modules, UICC, and intelligence remains strictly on the phone. The human machine

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interface (HMI) generally remains in the vehicle (but not always). Each of these different connectivity options relies upon different mechanisms for linking the car to cellular technology.

As the M2M market grows, so does the maturity and intelligence of M2M cloud platforms, enabling intelligent devices, back-end systems and cloud platforms to seamlessly integrate. A M2M cloud platform could bring about a global solution for managing connected devices across different networks and interfaces. This is attractive to the end-user facing brand (typically the automaker) as it enables the performance of the device on the network to be visible and troubleshooting processes to be performed.

A key factor driving the Connected Car is that connectivity will be necessitated by regulatory mandates such as the European Commission initiative eCall, which calls for a system to be fitted to all new vehicles by 2015, meaning emergency services will automatically be contacted and given the vehicle location in the event of a serious accident. Automotive OEM manufacturers across the board are fully prepared for the eCall legislation, although to what extent and when it will finally be implemented is unclear.There is no doubt throughout the industry that the connected vehicle will provide significant advantages in terms of life saving solutions and stolen vehicle tracking.

So what do we envisage for the Connected Car over the next ten years? Futurist Ian Pearson (@timeguide) see the vehicle developing into a fully personalised, virtual environment with intelligent automation, creating a totally new relationship between the vehicle, the driver, and the passenger. As you get in, the seat will automatically move to your preferred position, as instructed by your phone. Even fabrics and other interior surfaces will be able to adapt their appearance and textures electronically to your taste. Heads-up displays let drivers keep their eyes on the road. Many people will wear video visors that overlay data onto the field of view, making augmented reality a part of everyday life, and changing the appearance of everything around us, including car interiors and the world outside.In-car sensors will recognise and highlight points of interest and dangers ahead. Passengers will see an electronically enhanced world too, with information overlaid into their view, in addition to games, video entertainment and web access.Some of this data will come from the car and some from apps on their phone.

Further in the future, cars will come to you. They will take you where you want, and then you can just abandon them to go off to serve someone else. They will in effect offer a comfortable and socially inclusive form of public transport. This could even lead to buses disappearing from our streets WOW..exciting times

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ahead as the mobile and automotive industries work hard to connect cars and networks for our pleasure and their profit !!

Sadiq Malik ( Telco Strategist )

5 : MWC 14 Barcelona Day 4 : Thinking Carbon and Diesel !!

I bet you did not know that the 2014 Mobile World Congress was the world’s largest tradeshow certified to have a zero carbon footprint. The GSMA will certify the Congress as carbon neutral through the internationally recognised PAS 2060 standard. For several years, the GSMA has had climate change initiatives that have focused heavily on reducing waste in printed materials, encouraging the re-use and recycling of materials at the venue, utilising digital signage and electronic tools and working with Fira Barcelona, exhibitors and local partners to minimise the carbon footprint of the event. To achieve carbon neutrality, the GSMA undertook activities to reduce the carbon footprint and will then purchase carbon credits to offset any remaining emissions. Carbon credits purchased by the GSMA will fund several CER (Certified Emission Reductions) projects certified

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by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), including a hydropower project in China and a wind energy project in India, among others.

So what has this to do with us clever Telco people ?? Plenty…. unless you live under a rock you should know that telecommunications is supposed to reduce the need for transportation and the movement of people, as such total energy consumption should decrease in spite of the increased energy consumption needed for telecoms. Telco energy efficiency is such a critical issue that the GSMA Green Power for Mobile (GPM) programme, includes several initiatives such as awareness creation about the renewable technologies for telecom applications, CAPEX and OPEX analysis, vendor mapping and renewable energy market sizing. The goal of GPM is to assist the mobile industry in adopting renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, biomass, fuel cell or sustainable biofuels and hybrid power systems, in order to power an estimated 118,000 new or existing off-grid base station sites in the developing regions of the world. Reaching this target will reduce an estimated 2.5 billion litres of diesel consumption per annum and up to 6.8 million tonnes carbon emissions annually.

Due to an unreliable electrical power grid, Telcos / Tower Cos in Africa , India and other emerging markets use diesel generators, batteries and a variety of power management equipment to back-up the grid and ensure network availability. The growing cost of energy due to increasing diesel prices and concerns over rising greenhouse emissions have caused Telcos and TowerCos to focus on better power management methods. Mobile network operators (MNOs) spend approximately US$15 billion on their annual energy use. Therefore, it is no surprise that energy efficiency is becoming a strategic priority for them globally. As mobile use continues to grow, so does the demand for energy, particularly by the network infrastructure.

Lets take a quick look at the real cost of Diesel.

A typical generator at a telecom site consumes 2.5 litres of diesel per run-hour. Add servicing ($0.76 per run-hour) and replacement ($1.05 per run-hour) costs to the fuel itself ($1.10 per litre) and you get a fully loaded cost of $4.56 per run-hour.In Nigeria there are currently about 24,500 operational base station sites:12,000 are connected to the grid, of which approximately 80% need generator backup for regular grid outages lasting anything up to six hours per day plus 7,000 are generator-powered 24/7.And of the remaining 5,500, the vast majority are diesel-battery hybrids, with just a handful of systems also using renewable energy.

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For the purposes of our calculation, let’s assume that on average they run their generators for 12 hours per day. Pull that all together and diesel-related costs for existing sites add up to a staggering US$485M per year. And when you consider the country needs to increase the number of base stations to 60,000 by 2018, it’s putting increasing pressure on operators whose power-related operating costs are skyrocketing while their subscribers are simultaneously pushing for lower prices. And this is just for Nigeria – one country (all be it the most populated one) in a continent of 55.

Renewable Energy Technology ( RET ) solutions like solar photovoltaic, wind power, biomass and fuel cells are the technologies of choice for alternative solutions at telecom towers today. Hybrid solutions that combine diesel generators with RETs and batteries are being customised. Fuel cells are being installed as a standalone solution replacing the existing diesel generator. In a limited number of cases where electrical grid availability is close to 20 hours a day or more, the diesel generator at the tower site has been replaced completely by enhancing the existing battery capacity leading to improvement in economics and reduction of carbon emissions on site. Batteries are and will continue to be a key part of any backup power solution.

India is one country that has played a pioneering role in the field of energy efficiency. Some of the initiatives that have been implemented in India so far include passive infrastructure sharing, replacement of old base transceiver stations (BTS) with new generation BTS, usage of outdoor BTS, optimised cooling at shelter, usage of intelligent transceivers (TRXs), reduction of air conditioner load by using cold ambient air for shelter cooling and operating air conditioners using stored energy in the batteries to reduce diesel consumption and carbon emission are. In the last four years with the evolution of technology, the typical power consumption of BTS has dropped by about 60% .

Bharti Infratel claim their introduction of Free Cooling Units (FCU) used in place of air conditioners has contributed to reduction of 4.1 million litres of diesel usage annually after deployment across 6,318 of its 34,220 tower sites. Technologies like solar photovoltaic, wind power, fuel cell and other renewable or clean energy sources have been deployed in about 4,021 telecom sites in India. Approximately 1,000 Indus Towers sites use solar photovoltaic to augment the grid and diesel generated power.

Lets take another example : Nigeria and Ghana combined have a total of 30,000 + sites of which 50% are located in areas without commercial grid power , and mostly in rural and remote locations often with difficult accessibility for smooth and effective operations. Therefore , operation and maintenance of

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the network remains a big challenge affecting the cost of operations network availability and reliability of mobile telecommunication services. Network OPEX will depend on various operational factors including energy supply, equipment maintenance, operational efficiency and robustness. The right technology, robust systems, right supply chain integration coupled with regular monitoring and reporting will enable the MNO to achieve OPEX efficiency and improve profitability. Operations and monitoring of deployed green power solutions is the most crucial part for guaranteed savings and expected performance.In addition the MNO’s must embed robust operational practices and a monitoring framework in order to address the challenges and mitigate the risks of theft, vandalism, and ensure site security. Site security is a major issue as there have been several cases of damage to tower assets across the region. This risk has hindered MNOs from investing in green power alternatives for powering the network. Thefts of equipment and fuel pilferage have affected the OPEX of telecom sites.

Meanwhile among the most developed nations the NTT group in Japan has worked hard on energy conservation, prompting them to introduce new sources of energy in the telecommunication field as part of the “Save Power” campaign from 1987. A total of 282 solar power systems generating a total power of 4,745 kW and 18 wind power generators producing a total power of 781 kW were introduced. NTT Facilities, which has taken responsibility for energy system design, architectural design, and building and energy management, proposed the new concept of “Green integration.” This concept involves global environment protection and is based on NTT Group’s past experience and expertise.

NTT Facilities has Green data centers, are operated in an environmentally friendly way and construction of the facilities are based on the “Green integration” concept. NTT Facilities has developed a FMACS airconditioning system, by taking into account the indoor air current, that can effectively cool such equipment, and the system eliminates high temperature areas and reduces the amount of energy consumed for air conditioning. NTT also architected and deployed a MICRO GRID which combines various distributed power such as fuel cells, solar cells, and NaS batteries. The energy control system operates the distributed generators to control the influence on the commercial electric power lines wherein the micro grid is connected. This control system also optimizes the generation scheduling in terms reducing cost and environmental impact.

So what’s the point of all this ?? GO GREEN OR GO HOME…unless you are fond of having 35% + of your monthly OPEX going up in diesel fumes !!

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Sadiq Malik ( Telco Strategist )

6 : MWC 14 Barcelona Wrap up : Quotable Quotes !!

Finally the MWC14 is finished and all 85000 of us participants are back home , tired but reflective about the Congress. All kudos to the GSMA for organising this mammoth event with flawless precision : a Herculean labour indeed . And the city of Barcelona for being such gracious smiling hosts.

For me event was all about a brave new world forming , morphing. Its about 4G LTE connectivity becoming the Gold standard which will render cars into the “the new device”. Algorithms analyze in real time and enable the intelligence infrastructure to make autonomous decisions. Everything is going to be in the cloud as much as it is about the Internet of things ( IoT ) . Beeping sensors and software connecting humanity into a living breathing Web of real and virtual worlds. It will be about those who will create the future separating the winners and losers in the mobile industry.

SO HERE IS MY CHOICE OF THE BEST OF THE BEST quotes that captures the spirit and content of the Congress !!

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“Everything that can be digitized will be digitized. Everything that can be connected will be connected. Bridging the infrastructure and ecosystem to digitization is a mega trend we see in the second phase of the Internet “

( Tim Hottages , CEO Deutche Telecom )

“The industry focus in the coming years will be on personal data, connected living, digital commerce and networks. To realise the necessary developments in these areas, “huge investments of $1.7 trillion need to be done from now until 2020”,

( Jon Fredrik Baksaas,CEO of Telenor and chairman of the GSMA )

“Everybody worries about being a dumb pipe, and whether revenues will be able to support network investment that we need to make.Any other industry would be excited and highly optimistic given the strong demand in growth for their core services. However, the big problem we have as an industry is we have been unable to monetise this increased demand “

( Chua Sock Koong , group CEO at SingTel )

“Communication networks are facing a lack of scalable and sustainable architecture to meet the challenges ahead in terms of data traffic increases, video uploads and downloads, and enhanced M2M communication. The network of the future has to be highly elastic in order to facilitate the adding or dropping of capacity and real-time provisioning of service. It needs to be highly orchestrated by key business imperatives, such as customer satisfaction, and it must be highly integrated so that synergies are fully embedded and captured across fixed and mobile, across borders and across segments.”

( Bruno Jacobfeuerborn Deutsche Telekom CTO )

“We have a very precise directive to establish asymmetric regulation where a company holds more than 50 per cent market share.This concentration of telecoms services to a few operators has resulted in uncompetitive pricing and obstructed new entrants. 70 million Mexicans have no access to broadband, while those that are connected experience low data speeds and poor quality. We need to leapfrog this situation.”

( Mexico Regulatory commissioner Adriana Labardini )

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“Why are the next two billion not on the internet?. The reason is not because they don’t have any money, it’s because they don’t know the value of having a data plan or the services they can access.”

( Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook)

Regions around the world have always had initiatives regarding new technology, and it’s important that you start early with R&D to stay in the forefront. For example, we first commenced work on 4G/LTE in 2000, and understand the need to invest in the research of 5G.”

( Ericsson’s CEO Hans Vestberg )

“It’s a market. One billion people in the world are disabled in some form or another,”

( Mike Short, VP of Telefonica Europe)

“To change the vicious circle to a virtuous one, we’re going to need more cooperation than there has been in the past. Then we’re probably going to get to a win, win, win solution, as opposed to when you used to have people duking it out [as to who ‘owns’ the customer] in the past.There’s greater value in cooperating than just competing. Developers cando this too by opening up their APIs”

( Doug Webster, CMO, service provider, for Cisco )

“While big data is great, there is a lot of it out there in silos, and each data [set] speaks its own language, you need to be able to solve issues around homogenising it, then you need to solve issues around analysing the data… what we need is a ‘universal translator.We also need a better policy over who owns this data. We need to have joined up thinking about these open platforms,”

( Young Sohn, Samsung Electronics, president and CSO)

“ NFV and SDN concepts are at the core of our strategy. These help us realise our future network vision, which is a mutli-service, multi-tenant platform where we can respond more quickly and efficiently to our customers’ needs. With NFV, we’re able to dynamically reroute traffic and add capacity without adding new boxes. With SDN, we’re removing pre-defined physical limits of the network by shifting control from hardware to software. These allow the network to become

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simpler, more scalable. They also allow us to reduce costs significantly and more quickly address customer needs “

( John Donovan, Senior VP– Technology and Network Operations, AT&T)

“Not everything can be automated at once and municipalities need to select carefully the value added services that will give consumers the most value for their initial offerings. Once a base is established the municipality can market the platform as an opportunity for other businesses that wish to deliver value added services. “

(Jeff Edlund, CTO, CMS, Enterprise Services, HP)

“Between 15 per cent and 20 per cent of subscribers say they have poor coverage at home, and yet more than half of homes in countries like the USA and the UK have Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi is an obvious choice for solving the problem.”

( Ken Kolderup, Kineto’s CMO)

“We’re attracting new vendors by offering them an alternative to a mobile ecosystem that depends on two restricted operating systems with many strings attached. Apple controls all aspects of their offering and eschews customization. Even on Android, from an OEM perspective, only one manufacturer is profiting. Many people in the industry want to see a third option become more viable, and our flexibility makes us an ideal partner.”

(Jay Sullivan, COO Mozilla)

“ Mobile connectivity hold huge potential for women – currently an untapped economic potential. The Internet is proving to be an effective catalyst in transforming gender opinions. Access to a communication network provides women with the flexibility of working both remotely and on their own terms, allowing them to build independent companies. The more we can work together to develop this offering, the greater opportunities we can build for the region’s women as a whole”

(Dr Nasser Marafih, Group CEO, Ooredoo )

“ The impact of MNP in developing markets is linked to two factors: the time taken to port numbers and the fee charged to the subscriber to use the facility. The porting time after submission of request varies from as long as two weeks in some countries to just a few minutes in others. In Ghana, for example, 92% of

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porting requests are completed within 5 minutes. By contrast, in Kenya, it is cheaper to buy a new SIM than to port from one operator to another. The Kenyan regulator attributes low uptake of the service to “the lowering tariff differentials between operators and the convenience brought about by dual SIM card mobile handsets.

( Akanksha Sharma, Analyst, GSMA Intelligence)

“Our customers trust us, so our responsibility of how we manage this private information will become higher. Operators will have to become involved in defining how this sort of data is used, while protecting the privacy of the individual.”

( Kaoru Kato, Docomo’s president and CEO )

“Operators are] shrinking in relevance too fast. Many partnerships (with content and internet players) have been for loyalty, not for revenue streams. We need to find different ways of charging our customers rather than complain “

(Johan Dennelind TeliaSonera CEO )

“We will look back on this time and look at data as a natural resource that powered the 21st century,”

(IBM CEO Ginni Rometty)

Now let me tell you the best stop of my visit to MWC14

El Celler de Can Roca in Girona ( near Barcelona ) :This restaurant has propelled Catalan cuisine on the World’s Best Restaurants list. Dinners start off with caramelized olives, which come to the table on bonsai trees; after that, candied olives stuffed with anchovy are served on a miniature olive tree, then crispy shrimp followed by zucchini omelette and vermouth candy, then summer-truffle bonbon and brioche. Finish these nibbles, and we were ready for the actual meal …yumm…need i say more… ps: the waiting list for this place is one year so you better book now to coincide with MWC15

Sadiq Malik ( Telco Strategist )

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